Rising waters in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley have “not meant good news” for farmers in a part of the province still recovering from devastating floods four years ago, the province’s agriculture minister said on Friday.
Lana Popham said the deluge that hit the Sumas Prairie in Abbotsford has already submerged a couple of poultry barns in the region.
With 68 farms under evacuation order and another 98 on alert, she said the situation is taking “an emotional toll.”
At a news conference Friday afternoon, she said she could “hear that fear” in the voices of farmers she’s spoken with.
Although Popham said the provincial government is working with farming associations to assist them as needed, there is frustration that a vital agricultural region is once again underwater —both from farmers and politicians alike.
Abbotsford Mayor Ross Siemens demanded action on flood mitigation on both sides of the border to deal with overflow from the Nooksack River in Washington state.
Abbotsford, B.C., mayor calls out federal government over flooding: ‘We need action now’
Siemens said the the safety of residents, farms, livestock and provincial food security are all “needlessly” at risk because of inaction since the 2021 flood.
“Unless they do something on the American side, there’s not much we can do on our end,” Siemens said.
It’s a sentiment that poultry farmer Jeffrey Spitters shares.
“We have no control of it,” he said on Thursday.
“Our hands are tied in the sense that we’re at the mercy of what they decide to do.”
He’s been farming in the Sumas Prairie since 2013 and endured the 2021 floods.
Although his farm is built up high enough that it might not be affected by floodwaters, Spitters says that everyone raising livestock and growing crops in the Sumas Prairie may not be as lucky.
Brad Vis, the Conservative Party MP for Mission-Matsqui-Abbotsford, says the region received money to “build back what we had” after the 2021 floods — the most expensive natural disaster in the province’s history.
But the Tory MP says the region received no federal funds to do it “in a way that accounts for these atmospheric rivers and a changing climate.”
He says its frustrating for farmers, including members of his own family who operate a poultry farm on the Sumas Prairie and are under an evacuation order, that there hasn’t been infrastructure improvements in the past four years.
“We are critical to Canada’s supply chains and food sovereignty, and we have not received the attention we deserve,” he said.
He added that, like Abbotsford’s mayor, he has also pleaded with federal ministers “not to ignore us.”
B.C. is flooding again and all eyes are on Washington state
According to a statement from the City of Abbotsford Friday afternoon, federal Emergency Management Minister Eleanor Olszewski requested to meet with Siemens after he criticized the federal government for not contacting him at all since the flooding began.
“The [minister] advised of potential future grant opportunities that the [city] may be able to consider,” the statement read.
